Modern communication devices typically have mechanisms for participating in messaging service protocols such as text messaging by short messaging service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS) instant messaging (IM) applications, IP messaging, email, and the like. Typically, each of these protocols remains a separate and distinct application on a user equipment. Further, many of these protocols employ communications hardware backbones that are distinct and not supportive of cross protocol interactions. As a result, many communications on modern user equipment, commonly referred to as “texting” (which includes SMS, MMS, IM, IP messaging, email, voice snippets, emoticons, visual messaging, and many others), employ multiple protocols, numerous inboxes, outboxes, and commonly third party software applications to facilitate some approximation of simplifying and unifying the numerous communication avenues.
The negative impact of overlapping and cumbersome “texting” platforms (e.g., any combination of the numerous forms of text/video/voice communications other than a traditional voice phone call) on mobile devices has not gone without notice by device manufacturers, service providers, and third party application developers. Third party developers often are the most nimble and quickest to respond with attempts at fulfilling a long-felt need such as a unified messaging platform to support “texting”. However, many of these third party developers have lacked access to aspects of the hardware and core software of the myriad devices, systems, and protocols for texting. As a result, many third party applications are not robust enough, broad enough, or implemented in an attractive manner and fail to fulfill the long felt needs of the masses.
Device manufacturers and service providers generally are not as nimble as smaller third party application developers and are more constrained in business decision making, and thus rarely rush to put out product that is friendly to a competitor's product, service, or protocol. As a result, solutions for consumers' long felt needs may go unfulfilled by device manufacturers and service providers despite these entities having better access to the subsystems and core engineering that would enable them to develop a more ideal system/device in a less competitive environment.
As mobile device technologies become more ubiquitous and begin merging with more traditional computer manufacture and development, products and services are appearing for mobile devices that blur the lines between mobile and traditional notions of non-mobile devices. Interestingly, many business practices have also adapted to the coalescing mobile computing environment. One result of this is more interaction between device manufacturers and service providers in development and standards-setting environments. This is also true across competing platforms where the realization is that consumers will tend to gravitate to a less limiting service or device provider where possible and feasible. Thus, to keep customers, making devices and services more competitor-friendly has become almost a survival requirement.
The resulting more cooperative development environment is yielding improved services and devices for customers. One area of improvement that will be of great benefit to mobile device users is the move toward unification of messaging systems. There is clearly a desire and long-felt need to simplify and effectively coalesce the plurality of overlapping “texting” communications systems. This is also especially true in cross platform and cross provider conditions. Further, support of legacy devices will be well received by consumers.
One problematic aspect of traditional messaging environments is managing, in a clear and effective manner, messaged communications in a ‘conversation’ having a dynamic number of participants. Even where sometime in the future there may arise some form a unified communications platform, many messaging features would continue to remain dependent upon the number of participating conversants in that hypothetical unified messaging environment. This is especially true under the constraints of limited display area on many modern mobile devices.
Traditional attempts at reducing confusion due to the number of conversants in non-unified messaging environments have included limiting conversants to fewer than a set number (e.g., messages could be sent to 5 or fewer conversants only), forcing separate messaging systems for different numerical conversant classes (e.g., a message thread for a one to one (1:1) conversation is separate from a thread for a many to many (N:M) conversation or a one to many (1:M) conversation), or other limiting techniques. Arguably these techniques, especially where applied to mobile devices, can limit the efficacy of messaging as a communications tool in many situations. For instance, having 5 conversants and wanting to add a 6th can be prohibited in conventional systems. Similarly, having a messaging conversation including 1:1 conversations and N:M conversations seamlessly threaded can also be impossible to achieve under traditional messaging systems. Clearly there is still much room for improvement in managing features across shifting numbers of conversants in messaging and threaded messaging conversations.